Pope Benedict Did a Lot of Defrocking His Last 2 Years

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithfuls as he leaves St. Peter's Basilica at the end of the Christmas night mass on December 24, 2012 in Vatican City, Vatican.
Photo: Franco Origlia/Getty Images

In an unusual revelation of data, the Associated Press got its hands on some Vatican statistics about defrocked priests, and learned that Pope Benedict XVI was hard at work during his last two years, defrocking 400 during 2011 and 2012 for sexually abusing children. That’s compared to 171 defrocked priests in 2008 and 2009. While the reason for the increase isn’t exactly clear, the AP suggested it was due to a spike in molestation cases. Anyway, it’s a nice change from covering that stuff up.

Pope Benedict Did a Lot of Defrocking